Pel and the Predators

by Mark Hebden

  ‘They’re very profitable,’ Mademoiselle Guichet said. ‘It’s good stone. Undertakers use it a lot.’

  Darcy stared about him. ‘Don’t you find it lonely here?’ he asked.

  Mademoiselle Guichet shrugged. ‘You get used to it. I trained as a nurse. Then I left it for a time for another job, but as I grew older I didn’t fancy what I was doing and I was just wondering what else I could do, when the man who’d employed my brother to look after him died and he had nowhere to go. So we thought of looking after old people together.’ She paused. ‘He’s not fussy what he eats and he keeps himself amused. He watches television when he’s not asleep. But old people are all the same and someone has to look after them. He’s not the first we’ve had, of course. There’ve been several. When they’re old it doesn’t go on for long but it’s not hard to find a job. When one dies there’s always another.’

  Fourteen

  It didn’t take Darcy long to turn up Odette Héon, Dominique Pigny’s former flat mate, in Besançon. It never did with Darcy and, organising Aimedieu, Lacocq and Morell to be within sight of Pel the whole time he was away, he took a day off that had been owed to him for a month, and made arrangements to talk to her in her lunch hour. She turned out to be tall with good legs and a jacked-up bust and he could hardly give her an Oscar for taste, because her flowered dress looked like a herbaceous border and Darcy liked his women svelte and sleek. But she had plenty of other attributes so he turned the lunch hour meeting into a chat over drinks and arranged to take her to dinner after work.

  ‘We’ll have more time to talk,’ he suggested.

  It was the end of the month and he was short of money, so he took a long time choosing the restaurant and, because Odette Héon was also short of money and was glad to have someone pay for her, she didn’t complain. Darcy didn’t even apologise but simply explained the situation. It was part of his technique. It was also part of his technique to make sure he took her back to her apartment afterwards when he discovered that the girl with whom she now shared was spending the weekend with her boy friend’s family.

  ‘It’s not much,’ she said as she opened the door. ‘It’s full of what looks like Louis XIV furniture and isn’t. It goes with my car. That looks as if it’s Louis XIV, too.’

  Darcy studied the flat as she made coffee. ‘So this is where it all happened?’ he said.

  ‘Where all what happened?’ Odette Héon slammed a tray down, complete, Darcy noticed, with a brandy bottle among the cups and saucers. She had clearly taken a fancy to him.

  ‘Dominique Pigny,’ he said. ‘Whatever she was up to, she probably thought up here. What was she like?’

  ‘Sometimes I thought she was such a bitch it was a wonder she didn’t catch rabies. Other times, she was generous, kind and made you laugh. If anybody had a split personality, she did.’

  ‘How was she a bitch?’ Darcy asked.

  ‘Well, she pinched the boy I was going out with for one thing. She didn’t keep him, though. I think she frightened him to death and he was back panting on the doorstep within a fortnight. I told him where to go. Cognac with your coffee?’

  Darcy nodded and found a seat on the settee. It sagged at one end and when she sat alongside him she slipped automatically up against him. They drank their coffee and cognac and Darcy put his arm round her. It was late by this time and she showed no sign of throwing him out.

  ‘I’d better be going,’ he said, not moving a muscle.

  ‘You can stay the night, if you like.’

  ‘Where do I sleep?’ He jabbed the settee. ‘Not on this, surely.’

  She laughed. ‘It’s terrible, isn’t it, when men suppress their sexual instincts. They get dreadful headaches.’ She picked up her glass and headed for the bedroom. Darcy followed her.

  ‘How do you know I’m not a virgin?’ she said.

  ‘They’re collector’s items these days.’

  About two o’clock in the morning, Darcy turned over.

  ‘Dominique la Panique,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, not again!’ She pulled the sheets up sleepily, then she suddenly came to life and sat up, fully awake.

  ‘Is it true she’s dead?’

  ‘As a fish on a slab.’

  ‘What was she up to?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know. Did you know any of her boy friends?’

  ‘I knew mine.’

  ‘Any others?’

  ‘There was this Paul Pineau she went round with. He keeps a boutique near the Rue Ernest Renan. He calls it “Girl.” He would. His mother was English and it shows. He came here with her once. There was also a fisherman in Concarneau. She worked on his boat, she said. I can guess what at, too.’

  ‘I’ve heard of him,’ Darcy said. ‘What was his name, do you know?’

  ‘No. But she showed me a photograph of him on his boat. It was called Petite Annicke. You could see the name in the photograph. She went over there to see him. About three months ago. She turned up here with what looked like a lot of press cuttings. She had them spread out on the table and she seemed pleased with them.’

  ‘What were they about?’

  ‘They seemed to be about some court case she was interested in. I think she was crazy because the next week she went off to Lyons and came back with some more. She said she’d cut them out of the newspaper files. You aren’t supposed to but she’d managed it with nail scissors when the girl who was looking after them went for a coffee. It’s the sort of thing she would do. She made me hoot with laughter. She could.’ She paused. ‘She’d been in trouble, did you know?’

  ‘We heard that. For drugs.’

  ‘A bit more, too. For fraud. Some old man she worked for. She got him to make over some insurances so she could collect them for him, but she kept them, told him they’d lapsed, and vanished with the cash. Something like that. She also did some poor devil for blackmail, too. Did you know that?’

  ‘She has no record. We checked.’

  ‘She was cleverer than you think. The old man with the insurance refused to prosecute, she said, because it made him look a fool and, as for the man she was blackmailing, when he threatened to tell the police she came back with a threat to tell his wife so that was that. She disappeared before he could change his mind. That was before she came to live here, though.’ She stopped dead, then went on wonderingly. ‘Do policemen always conduct their enquiries in bed?’

  ‘Only if they’re with a girl.’

  ‘Are they all like you?’

  ‘Most of them would like to be. My chief, for instance. He’s on the slow side. But I once laid on a woman for him—’

  ‘And then laid on her yourself, I expect. Well, you’d better turn over and go to sleep because you’re not coming back for seconds. I have to go to work early.’

  The following morning Darcy paid a short visit to the police then found Paul Pineau’s shop in the shadow of the cathedral.

  Pineau was a tall, good-looking man in his forties dressed casually but smartly as though clothes were important to him. His trousers were immaculately cut, his shirt was a primrose yellow, and a red silk scarf was tied negligently at his throat.

  ‘I’m rather busy today,’ he said at once. ‘My accountant’s due.’

  ‘I think you’d better take a break for a moment or two,’ Darcy advised. ‘I’d like to talk to you about a girl called Dominique Pigny.’

  Pineau’s face changed and he gestured to the back of the shop. ‘I think we’d better go through here,’ he said.

  He led the way behind a display and pulled a curtain aside so that Darcy found himself in what passed as an office, though, judging by the electric hot plate, the hanging coats, the instant coffee and the carton of milk, it was also where the staff retired for a breather.

  Pineau indicated the only chair, lit a cigarette and stood, frowning.

  ‘Dominique Pigny,’ Darcy tried. ‘When did you last see her?’

  Pineau considered. ‘A month or two ago? About that. Perhaps a
little more. I can’t be certain.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. In Besançon. We met for a meal.’

  ‘How did she get here? Had she transport?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. I assumed she’d come on the bus or the train. She might even have hitched. It’s very possible.’

  ‘Did you know where she was living?’

  Pineau didn’t know where she was living. She’d arrived in his shop and asked to see him and he’d suggested the meal. He’d been prepared to do the thing in style but she’d chosen an indifferent restaurant which he normally wouldn’t have selected.

  ‘I got the impression she didn’t want to be noticed,’ he said.

  Darcy went through the photograph routine and placed the picture of the Lucie necklet on the table. If all had gone as it should, Pineau should have fallen in a dead faint and admitted giving the necklet to Dominique la Panique to buy her affections then murdered her to get it back. Unfortunately, that sort of thing happened so rarely as to be never, and instead he studied the picture carefully, turning it round slowly for a better view.

  ‘It’s a Lucie, isn’t it?’ he said.

  Darcy’s head jerked round. ‘You know it’s a Lucie?’

  Pineau smiled. ‘I know a bit about things like that.’ He extended his hand. Round his wrist was a gold bracelet, made up of three small chains all roughly the same as the one in the photograph. It went with Pineau. ‘That’s a Lucie, too,’ he said.

  ‘Why are you wearing it?’

  ‘Why do you wear a tie? Why do you wear trousers? It was my mother’s originally but these days men wear jewellery too, don’t they?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  Pineau shrugged and fished in his pocket to produce a gold cigarette case. ‘Hardly an antique,’ he said, ‘but it has a history. It was once owned by an aide of Stavisky who in 1934 brought down not one government but two and very nearly started a revolution with his financial machinations.’ Fishing in another pocket he produced a gold cigarette lighter. ‘No history. No antiquity. Cigarette lighters don’t have, do they? But it’s valuable.’

  Darcy studied him for a moment. ‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d be inclined to keep things like that out of sight. Muggings are increasing every year.’

  Pineau gestured at the picture. ‘This necklet,’ he said. ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘It was Dominique Pigny’s. Did you give it to her?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘You knew her well and, since you appreciate the value of good pieces, you could very well have done.’

  ‘I could. But I didn’t.’

  ‘Have you seen it before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You know she’s dead, of course?’

  ‘I saw it in the paper.’

  ‘When you saw her, what did you talk about?’

  ‘Old times. I even thought of asking her to marry me. I knew she’d had an unstable life and I thought I could give her some roots. After all, I’m not poor and I have a house at Andeux. She’d have been very comfortable.’

  ‘Did you ask her?’

  ‘I dropped a hint but she just laughed. It was full of contempt so I didn’t bother. She was like that. There wasn’t much of her but she knew what she wanted. There were times when I hated her.’

  ‘Why did she come to see you, did you think?’

  ‘Why did she do anything? She was quite unpredictable.’

  ‘“Spooky” she’s been described as.’

  ‘That’s a good description. Weird. Impulsive. Odd. She probably came because she felt like talking about old times. Or probably just because she knew I’d give her a free meal.’

  ‘She didn’t choose a very expensive restaurant, did she?’

  ‘That would be in character. It would be like her to ask for a free meal and decide at the last minute to make it as cheap as possible.’

  ‘Did she mention a man called Gérard Crussol?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or a fisherman in Concarneau?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she mention going to Brittany?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what do you think she wanted?’

  Pineau frowned. ‘It was my belief that she just had time to kill and decided she might as well waste my time as anyone else’s. She might have been waiting for a bus for all I know. We talked for a while. Here in this office. Then we went out for a meal.’

  ‘And talked of nothing?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  Well, it was possible. People did hold conversations that were about nothing and it seemed that anything was likely with Dominique Pigny.

  ‘Did you know she was pregnant?’

  Pineau sniffed. ‘It would be just like her,’ he said. ‘She was a very untidy person.’

  ‘It wasn’t you?’

  ‘God, no! If I’m nothing else, I’m tidy.’

  ‘Did you sleep with her?’

  ‘Once or twice. At my place. Once when we went for the weekend to Paris. But not lately.’ Pineau was silent for a moment. ‘She wasn’t inexperienced and, given the chance, I think she could have made someone a good wife.’

  ‘What do you mean, given a chance?’

  ‘She was her own worst enemy. She had a lot going for her but she wanted money and she wasn’t prepared to get down to it and earn it. She wanted property. She talked of farming.’

  ‘Farming?’

  ‘She seemed to have some project that involved the land. I decided she’d met a farmer who wanted to marry her and she was throwing herself into the idea as disastrously as she threw herself into everything. She’d have made an awful farmer’s wife. She’d have forgotten to feed the chickens and failed to lock up the pigs.’ Pineau became silent. ‘She could have helped me run this business. I’d have been happy to have her.’

  ‘Even if you knew the police were watching her?’

  Pineau’s face fell. ‘Were they?’

  ‘Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No.’

  Darcy shrugged. ‘But then,’ he said with a smile, ‘she was clever at keeping things to herself, wasn’t she?’

  When Darcy returned to the Hôtel de Police, Pel was sitting at his desk reading reports. Gautherot had been charged with the theft of Madame Boyer’s ducks and they’d got a strong lead about the petrol theft at Loublanc, but Brochard, who had taken over Madame Argoud from Roumy, who’d tried to beat her husband’s head flat with a candlestick, could report only that, impervious to pleas, threats and promises, she was still refusing to say why she’d done it.

  ‘There must be a lover boy somewhere.’ Aimedieu, who was passing the files across as part of his duties as bodyguard, gave Pel his altar boy look.

  As Darcy put his head round the door, Pel gestured to a chair. ‘You look as if you’d had all night in with a vampire,’ he observed.

  Darcy grinned. ‘I did. A lady vampire. It’s terrible. I don’t know how I stand it. There must be something about me, the way they rush at me. I get tired of fending them off. She chased me. Mind, I didn’t run very fast.’

  Pel didn’t approve of Darcy’s affairs but there was nothing anyone could do about them. Not even Darcy. He lit a cigarette slowly, stared at it, then hurriedly put it out. ‘I keep trying,’ he said.

  ‘You could have an operation,’ Darcy said.

  Pel looked up, a gleam of hope in his eye. ‘To stop me smoking?’

  ‘You could have your nose and mouth plugged. You could even have your lungs taken out. But I’m told that’s dangerous. People sometimes die after it.’

  Aimedieu grinned and Pel glared, but Darcy was unperturbed. ‘I’ve found out a bit more about La Panique,’ he said. ‘She seems to have been a good liar and not fussy about the niceties of the law. Crussol was certainly right when he said she wouldn’t recognise an ethic if she bumped into one. She preyed on people.’

  He opened his notebook and began to read. ‘Possessing drugs. She got away with that as a first o
ffender. Pushing drugs. She got away with that, too, because she pleaded she was under the influence of drugs at the time and agreed to undergo treatment. She was cured. But then they picked her up for theft. A gold bracelet belonging to her employer. She got away with that one, too. There was also a case of fraud and one of blackmail. I have the details. She probably went in for smuggling, too. She was friendly, it seems, with a fisherman in Concarneau.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘No name. But I know the name of his boat.’

  ‘You seem to have spent a fruitful time in Besançon.’

  Darcy grinned. ‘Oh, I did, Patron, I did. What about this fisherman in Concarneau? Do I go there and check him out?’

  ‘Probably.’ Pel was curiously non-committal and Darcy frowned.

  ‘Something happened, Patron?’

  ‘Bardolle has an item of news for you.’

  ‘About this?’

  ‘About Philippe Duche. Le Gaston saw what he thought was a poacher in the woods near the Château d’Ivry. He was after something big, he thought, because it wasn’t a 6.35 he was carrying.’

  Darcy frowned. ‘In that case, Patron,’ he said, ‘I think it’s you who ought to go and check this fisherman. You’d then be a long way from Arne. Take Geneviève with you. I’ll see that Aimedieu here’s within reach all the time.’

  ‘Geneviève isn’t going to appreciate that.’

  ‘She won’t know.’

  ‘In any case, I’m not sure I ought to take her anywhere with me with this hanging over me.’

  ‘She’ll wonder why if you don’t, Patron. Besides, I suspect that if she did know she’d prefer to be with you.’

  Pel considered for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Get Le Bihan to lay it on.’

  ‘Right, Patron. And take your gun. Just in case.’

  Pel gave him a sad look. Even Didier Darras was a better shot than he was. ‘I’ll probably shoot myself in the foot,’ he said.

  Darcy didn’t smile. He looked at Aimedieu. ‘How about you?’

  Aimedieu patted his gun.